Gingrich: Winning Michigan Remains a Feasible Goal

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says even though rivals Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are currently leading the pack in the important primary state of Michigan — which is also Romney’s home state — the former House speaker has not given up on his chances. Gingrich, who has dumbfounded political pundits before with his repeated surges, also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Wednesday that he continues to confidently look to Super Tuesday.

“I’ll be in Michigan campaigning next week — we have every reason to believe we’re going to be competing there effectively — and we’re going to have a number of surrogates also competing in Michigan,” Gingrich said. “You have to break 15 percent — it’s a proportional representation state — I think we will do that. So I think we will pick up delegates in Michigan,” which holds its primary Feb. 28.

“And my prediction is that if Mitt Romney goes and attacks Santorum as negatively as he attacked me in Florida and elsewhere, that what you’re going to see is he’ll peel votes off Santorum — but they’re going to come to me — they’re not going to go to Romney,” he continued. “This is the challenge Governor Romney has . . . he has, you know, Congressman Ron Paul, who’s done very, very well in Maine, virtually tied him. He has Rick Santorum, who did very well last week. And I’ve done pretty well against him in — I came in second in Florida and in Nevada — and I came in first in South Carolina.

The former House speaker, who has seen his early winter surging poll numbers falter, said it will occur to voters that “if all Governor Romney has is negative campaigning, where’s his positive message?”

“I’ve got a new message out, for example, of getting back to $2-a-gallon or $2.50-a- gallon gasoline, how to have a national energy policy, totally positive, totally designed to solve one of our major problems,” he said. “I’m going to continue to focus on these kind of very positive messages.

“People are looking for a positive leader who has a positive solution on jobs, a positive solution on gasoline and energy, and frankly, somebody who’s going to stand up to the Obama administration's war against Christianity and is going to draw a line in the sand and say: ‘We're prepared to fight to defend religious freedom in America against a radical secular administration,’” Gingrich continued. “So I think you have — you have three or four different things coming together here, where people want positive, issue-orientated leadership. They don’t just want somebody with a deep pocket of Wall Street money running negative ads.”